What librairies exists to create "moving/living" UI in delphi? - delphi

While reading delphifeeds yesterday I discovered delQuery, which allows one to get some nice animation on his form very simply.
I would like to know if there are any other libraries of that kind out there and what experience you had with them ?
(I'm trying to find a way to make my application more alive in terms of GUI; buttons that grow when you hover them, that kind of animations but with a nice programmatic interface)

Do you mean something like Billenium Effects?
(source: billeniumsoft.com)

There is CrossGL at http://www.crossgl.com/

Related

how to add "webkit-playsinline" to Edge Animate/PhoneGap project?

This is a much covered subject, however, I am not a coder and have not seen a clear breakdown of how to implement the "webkit-playsinline" tag, particularly in the context of Edge Animate (v.CC 2014.1.1).
I am looking to understand what libraries I may need to import and where to do this, or if I need to initiate something to get the tag to work (some function maybe) - I see there's an additional 'controls' attribute mentioned here: use webkit-playsinline in javascript
If someone will be kind enough to break this down for an idiot it will be much appreciated.
Using PhoneGap everything is working on Android and iPad, just need to try and get video to work inline and not pop into full-screen on iPhone - and apologies for not just jumping on one of the many other threads, only when you try there's a big notice saying not to do this =]
Thank you.

ios - Best way to create own level editor

I've created a core mechanic of my game and want to create a level editor for it. my game is not a tile-based one, so my needs are quite specific. Game is written using Swift and Cocos2d-swift, but i dont think i can figure something out with Sprite Builder.
What you can advice me? Can I for example create a level editor with c# and then use it from swift code?
And what data structure is the best?
I mean is it possible to serialize classes on desktop Swift application and then just load them on ios from file or I'll need to use json/xml?
It might be an old question but I ended up with using a .Net powered solution. I choosed as It has all controls that you need for creating a rich user interface and also, it has a lot of built-in and third party solutions for serializing levels in any way you want. And the c# syntax is very similar to the Swift one.
The only problem is that you might run windows to work with it.
My game in development also needed a non-tile level editor. A few months ago I took some time to make my choice.
Since my project still uses cocos2d 2.x, I don't use the whole new 3.x and SB system. After some investigation I found out that it would be too time consuming to adjust my whole project to the new system and adjusting SB to my needs, mainly because my game engine has been in development for quite some time and is close to finished. Further more, I couldn't find the right information to actually make it work for my game (it needed some odd level architecture I guess).
Finally, I didn't find any other good alternative so I decided to create my own level editor. In this way I had full control and I knew exactly how everything worked which was a huge advantage for me.
Right now my level editor has been finished for some time and works like a charm. I still think in my situation I made the right choice. Also because I learned a lot this way, building everything from the ground up. Having said that, for my next game I will probably go with the main stream and use SB from the start. Also for you I advice you to still check out SB and take some time for it before making an alternative choice...
I'll explain how I did mine. Disclaimer: it has some oddity's which only worked in my situation, but hopefully it helps a bit with choosing your own way to go, that's the goal I'm aiming at...
I used:
max/msp
Although it's developed to make music and audio based software, I used max/msp because it's very easy and fast for creating visual and interface based software as well.
More importend: I happened to be very experienced in it, which shortened the development time tremendously.
javascript
Inside the max/msp patch is a javascript file running. This file is like a bridge between the interface and the visual representation of the level being edited, and the database in which the level
is saved in. 70% of the editor development went into this file I think.
sqlite
All the data is written in a sqlite database. Again, this has been mainly the choice because it saved a great amount of development time in my case. I could have used xml files for instance, but my game was already using a sqlite database and because of this I felt comfortable using it, I had no experience in xml. Also all the code was already in place for a big part, which speeded up the whole proces a lot.
I'm very happy with the end result. It does everything I need, it's easy too use and since I made everything myself from the ground up I know exactly how every works.
Good luck with you choices.

Creating own iOS-controls with Flex

I was looking into creating iOS-apps (especially for the iPad) with the Adobe-Flex framework. It looks very promising to code apps this way.
Is it possible to create own controls/widgets? In the far future I might want to create my own kind of gantt-calender or whatever. Is something like this possible and are there any good tutorials/book out there?
Thanks in advance!
UPDATE: I want to create iOS Components that I can use in Flex. Controls, that are not aviable by default in Flex. Is that possible? By derivating or something?
UPDATE 2: In the meanwhile I found FlexLib to be useful. How hard is it to create stuff like this on your own? Especially for mobile devices. Are there any good tutorials, books, etc. out there?
Yes, you can create your own Controls in Flex. They are commonly called Components. I suggest you start by reading the Flex Docs on how to do so. There are also plenty of other resources out there. One is a screencast series that I created for The Flex Show. Here is episode 1.
You had asked:
How hard is it to create stuff like this on your own?
It depends on what the component wants to do. The commercial components we've built at www.flextras.com have taken from three to twelve months to build. Our Calendar is built from scratch, but most of the other components extend existing Flex Framework components.
The Flextras stuff are architected for reuse. A "single use" component for a specific app can be built in 1 hour [and up].
Once again, the purpose of a component will affect how long it takes to build.
#chiffre
Ok, maybe I am guessing wrong but "iOS controls" makes me think not to "flex controls".
Anyway with Flex 4.5.1 you can add any controls you want, the only thing that you must count (and this counts a lot) is performance.
Read especially about item renderers since scrolling list is not so fast on iOS and how you can make use of cacheAsBitmap.
Also keep in mind to always use light controls when needed if not extend base controls like UIComponent or Sprite and not Button if you just need a rectangle.
Here are some links
http://blogs.adobe.com/flashplayer/2011/06/adobe-air-2-7-now-available-ios-apps-4x-faster.html
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/mobile-development-flex-flashbuilder.

how to implement this hierarchical UI found in iPad in Delphi?

Check the screenshot below from Omnigroup, note the nested cards, how do you think we can implement a similar one in Delphi? Custom draw Virtual treeview? Any other hints? Thanks!
Seems to me that nested panels with captions would do the job nicely. If you want something more or less ready made, TMS Software's TAdvToolPanel comes to mind. Haven't used them for this kind of thing, but they are nestable, so you should be able to get something working fairly quickly.
An owner draw treeview might do the job. You could look at Virtual Treeview which is an open source component (and according to another SO question on of the best).

Draw and manipulate shapes at run time

What's the best way to draw shapes interactively at run time using Delphi? I need to be able to select, drag and resize the shapes. This will be used to mark up existing images and documents.
This looks like a good starting point, but I'm wondering if there's a more complete library (preferably free) available that will save some time.
Update:
If you're going with a custom solution from scratch, I've seen another example on Delphi Central that might be an even better starting point.
I will recommend you, read some links on my site. Are explained and all the source code is available; You can see and get some usefull for you.
Plugin system in Delphi - Part 2
Not directly what you need, is a plugin system for Delphi. But all the samples are based on a drawing tool that uses Shapes (Creating, selecting, resizing). You can review the code and extract what you need.
Sample manipulating of "Maps and Figures"
Sample of how to create, select and move components at runtime (in this case with TImage).
- Select shapes visually: Shows different ways to select shapes visually.
The web is in Spanish, but you can generate an authomatic translation on the web itself.
Anyway the code is commented.
Regards.
Excuse-me for my bad english.
One freeware option would be TssControlSizer. Just change the "control" property to the control you want to manipulate resize/move.
Not sure if you've moved on now with this Bruce but if you haven't, it might be worth looking at TMS Components Diagram Studio - it's certainly cheap, and looks quite powerful from the demo.
I would use Flex Graphics (commercial, $499 for one developer, with sources, $1500 for site-license, with source code). When I bought it, it was a lot less than that. So I guess, I wouldn't pay that now. It's a lightweight 'drawing/cad' package.
But as I already own it, I could import a page from the original document as an image, perhaps rendered in PNG or WMF, and then mark it up with lines, etc.
You could think of it as a light "cad" package. It has most primitive shapes, and you can easily create your own new objects or shapes in Delphi classes, that could be "smart shapes" like the ones in Visio.
http://www.flex-graphics.com/
Another commercial component set that I have heard only good things about is TRichView. They have a TRichViewEdit that looks like you could emulate a document markup environment easily with it.
Please check here:
TCAD -2d graphics component for delphi
http://www.codeidea.com
wish can help you.

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